The present invention relates to animal corrals and more particularly to transportable corrals which can be transported to remote sites, assembled for use, and, thereafter, disassembled for transporting to another site.
In many areas, particularly the southwestern United States, large areas of land are available for the grazing of cattle, sheep, and other livestock. Unfortunately, the land is sparse in feed whereby the number of livestock per acre which the land will support is few. It is common practice in such areas, to graze the live stock on the grass lands during the early periods of their growth. Thereafter, the livestock are moved to a feedlot where they are confined and brought up to selling weight with commercial feeds.
In rounding up the livestock for transportation from the grass lands to the feed lots, corrals must be employed wherein the livestock can be brought into a central area and maintained until loaded for transportation. The time and cost of locating corrals at various locations within grazing lands which may extend over hundreds of acres can be extensive. Therefore, it is desirable that a sturdy portable corral structure be available that can withstand the pressures of milling livestock while, at the same time, being easily deployable for use and easily and compactly trailerable for movement between locations.
Portable corral structures are not completely unknown. For example, in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,472 to York, a horse trailer and attendant corral structure is disclosed comprising uncoilable cables to be connected to posts inserted in the ground.
The Canadian Pat. No. 942,108 to Caddoo, discloses a portable cattle corral which extends outwardly from a trailer and stores on the sides thereof.
A similar corral to that of Caddoo is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,921,585 to Hall.
The U.S. Pat. No. 3,741,529 to Blagg shows a horse trailer having a plurality of fence sections stored inside which can be deployed to form a corral in conjunction with the trailer whereby the horses can go into the trailer and out of the trailer into the corral.
The U.S. Pat. No. 3,726,256 to Bernhardt et al. shows another horse trailer having corral sections associated therewith. Whereas the Blagg invention carried its corral sections inside the trailer, that of Bernhardt et al. carries them outside.
Of the foregoing, only the apparatus of Caddoo begins to approximate the needs of a rancher corraling a number of livestock in preparation for transport. The Caddoo apparatus, however, is adaptable for holding only a few livestock and does not support the loading and unloading of livestock or the cutting operations normally attendant thereto wherein livestock which have been included within the group rounded up can be selectively removed from the group for various reasons.
Wherefore, it is the object of the present invention to provide a portable corral structure particularly adapted for use in loading and unloading operations of large numbers of livestock as heretofore only a permanently mounted structure would suffice.